Humans have long been reigning the Earth as uncrowned rulers. With their sharp mind, crucial thinking ability, power of execution, and sky-high ambitions, human beings have unarguably been the wisest species living on the planet.
Time and again their existence was threatened but it is the urge to live that has chalked the way ahead for the humans. Starting from the stone age to the invention of fire, metals, followed by the grouping of humans in societies that expanded to cities and countries, humans never really shirked any opportunities of inventing new things.
Later when the humans started to be distanced from each other, they started to invent tools like the telephone, telegram, mobiles, and computers to keep them connected. Though human inventions were always speculated hugely on the necessity and the disadvantages that they would likely have, most of them went on to be successfully received by the successive generations and resulted in bettering our lives overall.
Robots are machines programmed by humans to be operated as computers that can carry out a complex series of actions without any significant aid from humans. The invention of these machines was being discussed since the emergence of the first generation of computers. However, the invention of robots was not an easy task and required severe hindrances to be overcome before they could be materialized.
The invention of robots started with that of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the first of which was developed by Christopher Strachey.
However, if you are curious about robots, then it is George Devol, who had invented the Unimate in 1954, the first commercial, digital and programmable robot.
The robot was eventually sold to General Motors in 1961, where it served as a human alternative to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting machines at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in Ewing Township’s West Trenton section in New Jersey.
The development of robots was not only seen as a useful addition to various industries and companies to boost their overall productivity but also as robust reinforcements to get risky and dangerous tasks done without any bother.
Elon Musk’s Announcement of the All-New Tesla Bot
Elon Musk, founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer of SpaceX and CEO and Product Architect of Tesla announced on Thursday, August 19, 2021, that the electric automobile company, Tesla is almost ready with the prototype of a humanoid, which they are set to launch by next year. This is a step towards developing the next generation of AIs that look similar to the structure of humans and can work like them.
Tesla Bot
The humanoid bot is code-named “Optimus,” said the billionaire entrepreneur, who would stand 5 feet 8 inches tall and would not be “super-expensive” to afford. The robot will be based on the same chips and sensors that the Tesla autonomous cars use for operating their self-driving features.
What does Tesla Bot do?
The humanoid bot launched by Tesla can perform a wide range of chores that are considered to be dangerous, boring, or repetitive. Elon Musk further mentioned that the humanoid will be an excellent addition to the industries in order to address labor shortage issues. The all-new Tesla bot would have “profound implications for the economy,” he added.
Musk also presented the slides to exhibit the design of the bot prototype where he mentioned that the bot will have autopilot cameras installed in its head. He also declared that Optimus will weigh 125 pounds and will have the ability to run at 5 mph, lift 150 pounds and carry 45 pounds of weight.
Fetching groceries or other utilities from the store will be among some of the major benefits of using the bots.
Though the Tesla bot might seem like a unique concept and the working of such robots a breakthrough since the last AI, it is not the first humanoid bot that we have known. Yes, there is a list of humanoid robots that are already in existence and happen to be working in different sectors.
Nadine – The Robot with professor Nadia Magnenat Thalmann
We all have to interact with a customer service agent or two whenever we find any issues hindering our systematic lifestyle and work process or want to make a new visit or initiate any new processes. The customer service agents duly assist us in such works but you might also bump into Nadine, who would look similar to a woman but is actually not.
Nadine was developed in 2013 by Kokoro Japan and is modeled on professor Nadia Magnenat Thalmann.
What does the Nadine the Robot do
Nadine is a social robot that can greet you on your first visit, talk, make eye contact, remember your previous meetings and chat in the respect of the earlier meets. The social robot can talk in 6 different languages and handle a list of queries smoothly.
Nadine is currently employed as a customer service agent in AIA Insurance Company in Singapore and is the first humanoid robot in the world working as a customer service agent.
Ocean One
Ocean One
Marine life has always interested us. Though scuba divers and other manual interventions have resulted in knowing the underwater ecosystem better, however, the invention of the humanoid bot, OceanOne has further bridged the gap between the land and the water. OceanOne was developed by Stanford University in collaboration with KAUST’s Red Sea Research Center and MEKA Robotics.
What does the Ocean one the Robot do
OceanOne was developed to explore coral reefs and other submarine subjects and life forms. The robot mermaid can dive into the depths that human beings cannot. OceanOne first divided 100 meters below into the depths of the Mediterranean Sea and discovered the wreckage of La Lune of King Louis XIV of France, which sank off the southern coast of France in 1664.
Erica
Erica
News anchors bring us the latest news from our neighborhood and from across the world. However, they have all been humans, aren’t they? If you are in Japan, then think twice because there you might also be watching Erica as the news anchor!
Hiroshi Ishiguro, the Director of Intelligent Robotics Laboratory developed Erica at Osaka University. Erica is one of the most modern robots that can understand human conversations and change her facial expressions according to the conversations. Though this robot cannot walk, she is shockingly good at speaking.
What does Erica the the Robot do?
Erica can be used as a conversation company because she is smart and can talk nicely, which is almost as expressive as humans. She is currently used as a news anchor in Japan.
Nao
Nao
We have all been to soccer matches or seen them on our television or computers. What energy the soccer players display! What unity and coordinated gameplay we get to see in one such match!
However, soccer matches are not only a game solely dedicated to humans. Nowadays, robots have started to enjoy it too. Nao, the 23-inch robot is the first of its kind to engage in a game of soccer.
Invented by Aldebaran Robotics, a French robotic company, was launched in 2008 and now has an entire event RoboCup Standard Platform League, a part of Robocup, dedicated to it.
What does Nao the Robot do
Apart from playing soccer games, Nao has also emerged as an intelligent robot that can be used in multiple industries for more than one purpose. It is one of the leading robots of the world, which is adopted in more than 70 countries in total mainly for academic and research purposes. Furthermore, Nao is also used to educate autistic children. Aldebaran Robotics was acquired by Softbank Robotics in 2015, which now produces the robot.
The very thought of someone, a machine operating as we do has always fascinated us. The existence of such creatures is fun, interesting, and useful no doubt. Most of the robots that exist today are intended to be friendly. However, they are becoming more advanced with each passing day and as Elon Musk has pointed out earlier, can also turn into the “biggest risk we face as a civilization,” which we should avoid at any cost.
FAQ
What was the first humanoid robot?
The first humanoid robot was Herbert Televox built by Ron Wensley in 1927.
What are some of the popular humanoid robots?
Tesla Bot, Nao, Erica, and Nadine are some of the popular humanoid robots.
When will the Tesla bot launch?
Elon Musk has stated that Tesla will launch the Tesla Bot prototype next year.
AI is a broad word that refers to a variety of electronic systems. When someone talks about AI, they could be talking about anything from neural network-powered face recognition to machine learning that predicts the ideal phrase to use in an email subject line. With a slew of innovative startups entering the space, India’s AI ecosystem is exploding.
In the last four years, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have experienced a massive increase in funding and invention. Industry, medical, apparel, agribusiness, estate development, speech services, and other industries are now using them. India is currently a country with a solid ecosystem that allows AI startup professionals and entrepreneurs to kick-start their enterprises, thanks to the phenomenal expansion of the AI field.
Revenues From the AI Software Market Worldwide From 2018 to 2025
In 2021, global spending on cognitive systems and AI services was $57.6 billion. Between 2022 and 2030, AI adoption by organizations to be at a CAGR of 38.1% globally.
To improve AI, IoT, data analytics, information security, data science, and robotics, the Indian government upped its investment in Digital India to $477 million. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the 2019 Union Budget that the country would provide manufacturing training programs in technologies such as AI, Big Data, and robotics to 10 million Indian youngsters.
AI-enabled companies have enhanced every part of life, from medical to agribusiness, boosting the rise of AI companies in India. Let’s take a look at the 10 Indian AI Startups that are dominating the market.
Avaamo Technologies Private Limited is a private company founded on June 25, 2014, but not publicly traded. Its headquarters is in Bangalore, Karnataka. It has INR 1,00,000 in authorized share capital and INR 1,00,000 in total paid-up capital. Avaamo is a cloud service that automates the lifetime of Communicative AI. It is a deep-learning software firm focused on speech recognition to solve specific, increased enterprise problems. Avaamo is developing core AI technologies in areas such as neural networks, speech synthesis, and deep learning to make interactive computing for the industry a reality.
Qure.ai was established in 2016 by Pooja Rao and Prashant Warier. The company aims to make healthcare more accessible and affordable by using Ai. Qure.ai uses Machine Learning or convolutional neural networks to construct programs that detect illness patterns from medical photos. The Machine Learning algorithms developed by Qure.ai are delivered as code and used with any X-ray, CT scan, or MRI machine. This aid in the classification of radiography pictures as healthy or unhealthy, the diagnosis of disease, and the identification of defects that could otherwise go unnoticed. The revenue yield for Qure.ai in 2021 was $3.6 million.
Wysa
Wysa | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
Touchkin eServices, Aggarwal’s startup, created Wysa 2016, an AI-powered mental health app. Touchkin eServices has offices in Bangalore, Boston, and London. Wysa is primarily for individuals who simply want to express themselves. The founder claims that the majority of Wysa users are there to better their sleeping, anxiousness, or relations. According to Aggarwal, Wysa isn’t meant to be a substitute, but rather an extra tool with which a user can interact on a routine basis. The revenue yield for Wysa in 2021 was $4.56 million.
Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
Yellow.ai is a conversational AI solution that helps businesses automate customer encounters, created by Raghu Ravintala, Jaya Kishore Gollareddy, and Rashid Khan in 2016. Sephora, Bharat Petroleum, and FoodPanda are just a few of Yellow.ai’s clients. By implementing a multichannel chatbot in 100+ languages, businesses can now self-serve 80% of inquiries and boost CSAT by 20%. Yellow.ai and Microsoft teamed up earlier this year to modernize their speech automation service using Azure AI Speech Services and Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools.
Intello Labs has created technological services that analyze and evaluate the grade of vegetables and fruits using AI capabilities such as computer vision and machine learning. It was founded by Devendra Chandani, Nishant Mishra, Milan Sharma and Himani Shah in 2016. It has many big names as its clients: Reliance Fresh, Dole, and Ocean Spray. The company claims that their technology reduces the amount of food loss by digitalizing the quality control process of fruits and vegetables. It is to create an efficient production line, making it less wasteful. Intello Labs’ yearly yield in 2021 was $18 million.
CropIn
Cropin | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
CropIn is a prominent AI and data-driven agri-tech company that uses machine learning to give SaaS solutions to agricultural producers. It was founded in 2010 by Krishna Kumar in Karnataka to solve the problems local farmers face, such as non-availability of finance, climatic vagaries, soil degradation, pest infestation and diseases, operational inefficiencies, and no predictability of yield. The revenue yield for CropIn in 2021 was $27 million.
Bash.ai
Bash.ai | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
BASH.ai is an interactive chatbot that uses Machine Learning Models to help employees work more efficiently. It was founded in 2017 by Barkha Sharma and Tanay Dixit in New Delhi-NCR. It uses a rule-based AI-powered bot to imitate cognitive activities relevant to the HR function, leading to greater workplace efficiency. Simply put, a regulation bot can assist employees in obtaining information efficiently through a conversational interface. It allows the HR department to concentrate on crucial responsibilities rather than repeating jobs and general requests.
Myelin Foundry
Myelin Foundry | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
Myelin Foundry develops Artificial Intelligence algorithms on video, voice, and sensor data for edge devices. It was founded in 2019 by Aditi Olemann, Ganesh Suryanarayanan, and Gopichand Katragadda in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Myelin Foundry’s deep tech solution transforms sensory interactions and industry outcomes using Machine Learning techniques on sensor data, speech, and video collected from edge devices. It also provides super HD zero-buffering broadcasting over any channel, reducing time and expense to market even more. The revenue yield for Myelin Foundry in 2021 was approx. $1 million.
Niki is a Bangalore, Karnataka-based artificial intelligence business. Sachin Jaiswal, Keshav Prawasi, Shishir Modi, and Nitin Babel, all IIT Kharagpur alumni, formed the company in May 2015. Niki is a chatbot driven by artificial intelligence that serves as an intelligent personal assistant. Niki provides customers with a chat-based natural language user interface where they may engage with Niki in their language using natural language processing and machine learning. Niki learns how Indian consumers communicate, deciphers the words in the perspective of services and products they want to buy, and makes appropriate recommendations. It was once only accessible as a mobile app on the Android platform. The business has now extended to include the Facebook Messenger and Apple iOS platforms. The revenue yield for Nikki.ai in 2021 was approx. $25 million.
SigTuple
SigTuple | Indian Startups Leading AI Race
SigTuple uses cutting-edge machine-learning algorithms to create intelligent medical diagnosis solutions. It was founded in 2015 by Apurv Anand, Bharath Cheluvaraju, Rohit Pandey, and Tathagato Dastidar in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The business is developing Manthana, an AI system that will aid in the analysis of visual medical data. SigTuple can now function on five main high-volume screening procedures in the healthcare sector: peripheral blood smears analysis, urine microscopy, semen, fundus, and OCT scans, and chest x-rays, due to Manthana.
Conclusion
In India, artificial intelligence has a bright future. By 2035, AI can add $957 billion to the Indian economy, or 15% of its current gross value. Power, retail, manufacturing, medical, education, and agribusiness can all benefit from AI. These startups have changed the Indian Market and created many new job opportunities for Indian youngsters.
FAQs
Is AI a good career in India?
Artificial Intelligence salaries in India are significantly higher than the national average for most AI job categories.
Is AI in demand in India?
Yes, top nano degree programs in deep learning and data engineering demonstrate the country’s growing interest in AI and data.
What are the advantages of AI?
AI allows previously complicated activities to finish without incurring huge costs. AI is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no delay. AI improves the talents of people with varied abilities.
Which country is leading the AI race?
The United States is leading the AI race, followed by China and the European Union.
Which are the Startups leading the AI Race in India?
Food companies are adjusting their ways of creating and advertising their products to keep up with the trends. Food industries are influenced by technological improvements either directly or indirectly. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having an impact on food production and processing, making it easier and faster for businesses to create products.
PepsiCo is a wonderful example. PepsiCo is a clever AI user who understands the value of machine learning and the application of new technology. It is a well-known food and beverage company that is responsible for a number of well-known brands, including Pepsi, Miranda, Tropicana, Lays, Kurkure, and Mountain Dew. PepsiCo’s global net revenue was over 70.37 billion dollars in 2020. PepsiCo has attempted everything from utilising Snack Delivery Robots to recruiting robots.
Pepsi, as one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, is constantly at the cutting edge of technology, investing substantially in artificial intelligence technologies to increase practically every aspect of its operations. Fortunately, it has the sufficient capital and expertise to put in place the tech required to make things go effortlessly.
Shameer Mirza, senior research and development engineer at PepsiCo, understood that artificial intelligence might be used in a variety of ways to improve manufacturing process management. Mirza then created a machine learning technique that could be combined with a visual system to estimate the mass of treated potatoes. The corporation was able to save a significant amount of money because it no longer had to pay $300,000 per line (they had 35 in the United States alone) for measuring equipment. Mirza’s solutions rely solely on a camera and a computer vision model, and are basically nothing more than extra sample points obtained at no cost.
Machine learning is helping the manufacturing unit of Frito-Lay, a PepsiCo subsidiary. One prototype uses lasers to impact chips, then listens to the sounds they make to detect texturing. To digitize the performance analysis for Frito-chip Lay’s production plants, software evaluates audio and estimates chip texture.
PepsiCo has initiated a global training program on innovative machine learning and artificial intelligence for its internal marketing associates, in order to expand their team’s ability to use such innovations to start bringing perspectives that will improve their production plants.
AI is rapidly being used by businesses for manufacturing processes and data collection. Consumer research is one of the most important avenues here. In the past, such studies relied on data from survey data, which isn’t necessarily credible.
Thankfully, artificial intelligence (AI) is assisting academics in carefully sorting through information, identifying trends, and noting relevant insights. We can evaluate consumer insights deeply and quickly using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analytics, artificial intelligence, and social networks. As a result, patterns and trends emerge, allowing for thorough market research into critical consumer insights.
Tastewise, an AI tool, is used by PepsiCo to identify and anticipate food trends. Tastewise, which was founded by former Google Chief Marketing Officer Alon Chen, employs artificial intelligence to analyse massive volumes of culinary data available online. Tastewise promises that its platform has analysed more than 95 million menu items, 226 billion recipe interactions, and 22.5 billion social media posts, among so many other things, for companies such as Nestle and General Mills. PepsiCo gains a better sense of what customers are interested in as a result of these insights. PepsiCo adopted seaweed as a flavoring for savoury snacks as a result of the findings given by this algorithm—input that might not have come up in survey data.
Pep Worx, PepsiCo’s in-house big data and analytics platform, assists the firm and its partner companies in identifying valuable consumers by area, allowing for better product array and merchandising decisions. Stock choices, product positioning, and advertising techniques can all be aided by the system.
According to Supermarket News, PepsiCo used Pep Worx to identify 24 million households from a dataset of 110 million US households to plug into unexpressed demand for its Quaker Overnight Oats, single-serve cups of dry oats soaked overnight in milk or yoghurt in the fridge to get a nutritious, cold breakfast cereal by the early hours.
These victories mark the end of PepsiCo’s long journey to big data, which included decades of analysis and experiments before arriving at Pep Worx. Its first application of big data was to gain a better understanding of its one billion customers and to simplify its supply chain across its 200+ countries of operation. This information was largely in the form of compact documents before being released via Pep Worx.
Many experts believe that AI is the future of advertising and PepsiCo understands it fully. From ad design to targeting specific to ad buying, AI is revolutionising what is possible in terms of advertising. One of the most difficult tasks for advertisers is to ensure that the correct audience is targeted. AI may scan a variety of data sources to assess the likelihood of a user completing a given action, resulting in more successful and proactive marketing. To reach potential customers and expand the sales process, AI can develop look-alike communities based on previous efforts.
Machine intelligence in branding aids advertising agencies in making better use of buzzwords to quickly target buyers. The AI marketing approach and solutions enable digital marketers to reach consumers more effectively and increase income.
PepsiCo – Robot Vera To Interview Candidates
The organisation conducts phone interviews with job applicants and answers their questions about offered positions using the Robot Vera technique developed by a Russian corporation. The robot interviewer can examine 1,500 job applications in nine hours, compared to nine weeks for human recruiters. PepsiCo has designed Robot Vera to make calls to job seekers using powerful speech recognition technology, diverting its hiring crew to other tasks.
It uses Vera to assess candidates for occupations like forklift delivery drivers and industry employees, as well as to hire salespeople. The system can examine CVs on job sites continuously and call candidates who meet the criteria, conducting up to 10,000 calls at once.
Conclusion
Artificial Intelligence, according to PepsiCo and many other corporations, is the key to surviving in an oversaturated market. PepsiCo employs machine learning for a variety of purposes, including production and the recruiting of new employees. The number of food and beverage companies utilising artificial intelligence for everything from supply chain planning to customer transparency is growing, as is the number of supply chain management applications. And PepsiCo is well aware that Artificial Intelligence is the way of the future.
FAQs
What technology does PepsiCo use?
PepsiCo employs AI and machine learning in a variety of ways across the company.
Who are PepsiCo competitors?
Some among the PepsiCo’s top competitors are:
Keurig Dr. Pepper
Danone
Nestle
Britvic
Red Bull
Mondelez International
Monster Beverage
Why is PepsiCo so successful?
The company’s success stems from its ability to keep on top of new trends and lifestyles, providing customers with the flavours and comforts they demand.
In this growing modern world, technology has taken a huge leap. And in today’s world AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the new face of modern technology. In terms of Computer Science, AI or Artificial Intelligence refers to human-like Intelligence exhibited in a computer.
Now after years of being devoted and researching science-fiction, today AI is a part of our daily lives. And the advancement in AI technology has made our lives more functional and comfortable than before. AI is completing our words as we type them, providing us directions in the form of tutorials and other functions in other ways too.
Facebook, one of the largest social media platforms by Mark Zuckerberg, has now announced the same. Quoting that, for the improvement in the experience of shopping across its various ventures, a new way has been made for the existing and future businesses to set up a single online store for customers to access on Facebook.
The company has already characterized all the new products powered by AI. Also, the machine learning system has a surge in its vision for an all-in-one AI assistant that can search, categorize, and can stimulate products. While at the same time it can personalize its recommendations to the individual persons as per their choice preferences.
Before digging deep into the matter, let’s understand what are the key AI features Facebook is using to improve its shopping experience. So they are:
1. To automae the Marketing 2. Making Small Scale Business Possible 3. Product Recognition 4. Identifying many unseen objects and other attributes 5. Stepping Footprints for the Next Age Shopping.
Now let’s discuss them one by one.
Facebook – AI To Automate Marketing
Many E-Commerce businesses just as Facebook Marketplace depend on Artificial Intelligence. They depend on automating a host to stimulate the job being behind the stage. It starts from learning choice preferences and body types to look into and understand the possible factors that may influence the buyer. It may also influence the purchase decision of an individual or a group of purchasers.
McKinsey and Company known as a trusted advisor and counsellor to many of the world’s most influential businesses and institutions estimate that Amazon, which recently used AI to handle that what the shopper inquiries. And this in return generated 35% from its product recommendation engine.
Facebook – AI Making Small Scale Business Possible
Facebook marketplace
“We are seeing a lot of small businesses making their presence for the first time on this online platform, (as a result of the ongoing pandemic) whom we never saw before,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an online Livestream event conducted. He also disclosed that small-scale businesses around the globe used the platform’s services.
“This can help to endure some of the loss made due to this pandemic to their lost businesses. Facebook is distinctively positioned to be a winner for small-scale businesses. It is helping them to grow and create a healthy environment for their successful business.”
Facebook remarked that its AI shopping systems segments detect and make classification of images to know of that. They also make a decision, where the products should appear and deliver shopping suggestions.
One of the systems that Artificial Intelligence uses is known as GrokNet. It was trained on seven sets of data. It contains images of the products that many as in millions of users post, purchase, and sell in a bulk or dozens of categories.
Facebook – AI for Identifying many unseen objects and other attributes
To help the buyers or the respective shoppers find accurately what they are searching for, the product recognition systems must shine at recognizing specific product characteristics. They are also known as attributes. But there lie thousands of other possibilities. Each one of them can be applied to a range of other categories. For example, a person can have blue jeans, blue shirts, blue pants, or even a blue car.
Mainly, several state-of-the-art classification models have taken the superintendent approach. But the thing is that, with near-infinite possibilities, this is not much ascendable.
Facebook – AI Stepping Footprints for the Next Age Shopping
Today, Artificial Intelligence shopping is walking its infant steps. From machines to photos of different products are still just collections of pixels. Just like “full sleeves”, others are more objective like “casual wear” Or “cold weather”. So basically training these AI models which can flexibly make the use of the precise and right information provided in each situation. Because each situation requires solving scientific and engineering challenges.
With each year Artificial Technology systems are being built smarter. Due to this training, they are finely tuned to understand all the shopping-related photos and text with the state of the art being exact.
And on a good note, there’s a long way to go for such futuristic innovations. Personalized shopping is very difficult as everyone’s choice preferences are becoming distinctive and are constantly evolving with time. So they need to keep on building on their fundamental Artificial Intelligence. This may also include enhancement for even deeper AI understanding for not only just products and fashion. But also dynamic context and vivid knowledge of relationships should be kept in mind with the items. Thus making us one more step closer to the next age of shopping.
Hence, there are advantages as well as disadvantages of Facebook’s AI on shopping that the buyers or the sellers will face. They are:
1. Requirement for selling through the Facebook marketplace. 2. Allotment of selling Fee 3. Unable to include extra additional or enhanced features 4. Excluding buyers, purchasers, or customers who are not on Facebook
Conclusion
Although these are the advantageous aspects that Facebook AI is having for Next-generation shopping. Yet it is also easy to forecast the disadvantages that will come along with it. But as this system came into force due to the pandemic going on, it’s not certain how it will perform in the future once the pandemic is lifted. So now all the small-scale businesses should incur some profits from the losses they endured.
So it’s a major plan set up by Facebook for the coming age. But the generation will decide its operation. Keeping in view its pros and cons, it’s the upcoming generation who’ll take charge of its fluent operation.
But whatever it may bring tomorrow, it surely had its impact now bringing success to many. Successful results say that not only in Facebook but everywhere else Artificial Intelligence is the new face for the rising tomorrow. Hence it’s a great initiative led by Facebook to help many small-scale businesses come out of their losses to start freshly. However, disadvantages may show up at any possible time. Hence, Time is the only condition evident of the fact that what will be the new aspect of Artificial Intelligence.
FAQs
How AI is transforming the way people shop?
AI system automatically scans through the product catalog and identify the exact product and makes it more convenient to give better shopping experience to the customers.
Does Facebook use AI for advertising?
Facebookuses AI to advertise the relevant content to users through text, photos and videos.
How is AI used in marketing?
AI tools use data and customer profiles and find best way to communicate with customers. They communicate though relevant tailored messages at the right time without any intervention from marketing team members.
With batteries contributing to 40%+ cost in modern EVs, there is anxiety around their longevity and performance (charging time, safety, etc) that require more than just local safety protection. ION Energyis an Advanced Electronics & Software supplier for EVs & ESS. It is focused on building technology that will improve the life and performance of lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and energy storage systems.
ION Energy is accelerating Earth’s transition to an all-electric planet. With a cutting-edge battery management system, advanced analytics software, and artificial intelligence-powered platform, ION is enabling electric vehicle and energy storage space providers the power of data to make faster and smarter decisions.
Read this article to know about ION Energy, funding, CEO, founders, turnover, products, business & revenue model, investors, awards, challenges, and growth.
July 2, 2021 – ION Energy raises a total of $3.6 million in pre-Series A funding round led by retail giants Amazon, followed by angel investors YourNest Venture Capital, Riso Capitol, Venture Catalysts, and others. The funding round was initiated by the eCommerce behemoth’s Climate Pledge Fund, which is set aside by Amazon to support promising sustainability initiatives of startups.
About ION Energy and How it Works
ION Energy has pioneered a disruptive battery intelligence platform – Edison Analytics, that is designed to improve performance and extend the life of Lithium-ion batteries. Edison leverages battery data, software analytics, and AI to remotely monitor, predict, and improve battery life. Battery pack manufacturers, OEMs, and electric mobility fleet operators around the world use ION’s platform to optimize their battery management systems (BMS) and build world-class batteries.
Edison Analytics Features
Both the Founders Akhil and Alex are ardent believers of the first principle thinking and aim to build for the futureand plan to shepherd the gradual and seemingly inevitable shift from fossil fuels to electric energy, more importantly in a developing yet booming economy like India. They emphasize the importance of educating and mobilizing the masses about the new alternatives of energy to change the prospect of EV as a niche concept to a mainstream.
ION Energy – Target Market Size
Battery storage may be the biggest disruption to the energy sector: Globally, the advanced energy storage market is forecast to grow from an annual installation size of 6GW in 2017 to over 40GW by 2022. In some markets, the improved performance and decreasing costs of batteries are already seeing them displace natural gas from the energy mix.
The company’s success in international markets have enabled them to sell 25,000 BMS that have been used with 100MWh of batteries last year. ION’s battery technology platform is leveraged by 60+ companies in 12 countries like India, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, North America, South Africa, UK, etc. to optimize their battery management systems (BMS) and build world-class batteries.
Despite Akhil’s graduation degree in Finance, he was interested in energy and software, since he was much younger. While he was managing the growth strategy at Haptik as its CPO in 2015, Akhil became intrigued by the launch of the Tesla Model S. The interest piqued further when his father was about to sell his Skoda Superb car and he had suggested converting it into an electric model.
While doing some research, ION energy Founder Akhil realized that replacing an internal combustion engine with an electric engine would cost him more than half of the car’s cost, i.e. a car which is in the range of INR 50 lakhs would require a battery amounting to INR. 1 Crore! Given the challenge of the exorbitant battery cost (the most expensive component in an EV), Akhil recognized that there was a pressing need to make the batteries affordable and accessible so that it lasts longer, performs better, and eventually, significantly reduces the cost of the vehicle.
Identifying the gap that no other company in India was catering to this space, ION energytook birth in 2016 in Mumbai. By the next year, ION Energy acquired Freeman SAS, an almost decade-old French company building Battery Management Systems, to boost its core competency. This led to Alex Collet transitioning from his role as a Founder of Freeman SAS to ION Energy’s Co-Founder and marked the international foray of ION Energy with an office in France.
ION Energy – Product/Services
ION Energy is an advanced battery management and intelligence platform. A BMS consists of a microcontroller and a bunch of sensors on the hardware so the technology involved is interfacing with this microcontroller through all these sensors and then interfacing this BMS with the battery pack. The core functions that a BMS performs include – data acquisition, protection, storage, and communication.
Battery Management System Hardware
In terms of the software used, there are various algorithms that run inside the microcontroller which is used to compute certain parameters of the battery such as the state of charge, state of health, range, etc.
The BMS that’s present in the battery pack has substantial information stored inside it and then there is the cloud that is powerful enough to compute, assess, and analyze. The startup is currently building a telematics unit that can transmit this information via the internet, but in its absence, it is using ION Lens, a telematics gateway unit.
ION Lens collects information from the BMS through Bluetooth over your phone and uses the phone’s internet connection to transmit information to the cloud in real-time. There is also a PC utility tool called CANView which runs on your laptop through a wired medium to the BMS called CAN. It connects, then your laptop sends info to the cloud in real-time, through the PC.
The intelligence layer on top of this is Edison Analytics. This is where the data is analyzed on the cloud. The insights are based on the data and the initial calculations that are being done by the BMS placed along with the battery pack locally, without the cloud.
Get Real Time Alerts with Edison analytics
Edison Analytics is designed to improve performance and extend the life of Lithium-ion batteries. Edison leverages battery data, software analytics and AI to remotely monitor, predict and improve battery life.
Advanced battery management and intelligence platform, ION is focused on building technologies that improve the life and performance of lithium-ion batteries used inside of electric vehicles and energy storage systems. ION also leverages advanced electronics and software that accelerates the effort of engineering teams.
In 2018, after acquiring an 8-year-old French Battery Management System (BMS) developer – Freemens SAS, ION came out of stealth mode and unveiled its first product UDYR, an easily swappable battery for electric scooters and started commercializing its flagship BMS platform. UDYR’s battery management would allow it to enhance performance and increase battery life by up to 200 percent.
Electric vehicles are expensive, primarily because of the lithium-ion batteries that power them. The cost of a battery amounts to 40% of the total vehicle cost. While the upside of using lithium-ion batteries is their high energy density, relatively low self-discharge, and low maintenance, on the other hand, they have a limited life. On average, the estimated life of a lithium-ion battery is up to 3 years or 500-700 charge cycles, after which, they need to be replaced.
This helped them pivot to improve performance and extend the life of lithium-ion batteries that are used inside EVs and ESS with its flagship BMS. ION’s unique advantage is its intelligent ecosystem – BMS + Edison Analytics, that blends advanced electronics, machine learning software, artificial intelligence, and data science with deep domain expertise in energy storage.
ION Energy o-founder Akhil Aryan explains, “The key differentiator – our battery intelligence platform Edison Analytics, uses real-time simulations and visualizations designed to extend battery life by up to 40% and reduce the overall ownership cost, thus boosting ROI.
ION Energy was founded by Akhil Aryan and Alexandre Collet in 2016.
ION Energy founders
Akhil Aryan – Akhil Aryan is the Co-Founder and CEO of ION Energy, one of the world’s most advanced battery management and intelligence platform. Akhil has been recognized as one of the Young Achievers of 2020 in the coveted ‘30 Under 30’ Forbes Asia (Industry, Manufacturing, and Energy), and Forbes India (Technology) list, and he has also been featured in Entrepreneur India’s ‘35 under 35’ list. Akhil’s objective is to identify missions and build an environment that helps unlock the full potential of his team.
One of the most unique things about Akhil is his versatility and ability to get on steep learning curves to understand markets and evaluate business opportunities. ION is a great example of how he converted his childhood fascination into a business, without an engineering degree. He graduated from the University of Mumbai with a degree in financial markets, but Akhil always says that his laptop is his gateway into the world’s largest repository of knowledge and degrees should not be held as assets that create entitlement.
In his last company – Haptik, one of the world’s largest conversational AI platforms – Akhil led the product team from the start, managed user acquisition and conversion, helping it skyrocket from 100k to 1.5 million users. In 2016, Haptik raised $12M and was on track to become one of India’s largest AI companies (acquired by Jio for $100M). Akhil was instrumental in building a complex Natural Language Processing engine to power the enterprise’s Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence efforts from the ground up.
ION Energy Team
Alexandre Collet – Alexandre Collet is the Co-founder and CTO at ION Energy, a company that is dedicated to reducing carbon footprints and building sustainable cutting-edge technology for lithium-ion batteries with a focus on electric mobility. Alexandre is chiefly responsible for designing and streamlining the technological innovation and product development at ION. A highly proficient engineer, he completed his masters in Power Electronics and Embedded Systems from the University of Grenoble, France.
Alexandre had a plethora of professional experience before his current electric endeavor at ION energy. In 2011, he founded Freemens SAS, an industry leader in battery management systems, that was acquired by ION Energy in 2018. Freemens SAS was powered into existence on his groundbreaking inventions and scientific research in power electronics architecture, lithium-ion cell aging factors, and state identification at the University of Grenoble, France.
ION Energy Team
Inside the company, ION Energy’s CEO Akhil’s role goes beyond the usual responsibilities of product, technology development, and business expansion. As a big believer of first principle thinking, his focus is on turning the green warrior narrative into a business opportunity and exploring ways to reduce the planet’s dependence on fossil fuels.
ION Energy Co-founder Alexandre seeks to concentrate on the software side of things with an increased focus on developing and scaling Edison Analytics, the world’s first and finest AI-powered state of the art battery data analytics software for all Battery Management Systems. He wants to make ION a household name and the face of advanced battery management and operating systems to unleash an electrical revolution in the world.
While Akhil is known as a software entrepreneur, he have always been innately curious about the nature of electrons. It never ceases to fascinate him that adding or removing even a single electron changes the properties of the nucleus of the atom, and hence the overall object! Such altered atoms that have gained or lost electron(s) are called IONs. This is how IONs form the basis of energy itself. The overpowering nature of IONs led to the name of as ION Energy.
ION Energy Logo
“I strongly believe that building, maintaining and optimizing the Energy Ecosystem is the greatest opportunity of our generation. Not only from a financial unit economics point of view, but also environmental impact. As a founder I will ensure that ION Energy remains at the forefront of this movement”, says ION Energy Co-founder Akhil Aryan.
ION Energy – Business Model
ION’s full-stack approach blends advanced electronics, IoT, analytics, and AI with deep domain expertise in energy storage. ION’s platform leverages a two-way communication gateway that enables businesses to:
Identify factors that are contributing to abnormal degradation of the battery’s health and the magnitude of contribution
Take appropriate actions like configuration changes over the air, drive profile changes, or environment changes to continuously improve the life and performance of the battery.
Optimize costs and acquire better ROI through all stages of the battery life cycle.
This is deeply integrated with a license to Edison Analytics, its battery intelligence platform that is offered as a SaaSproduct. With this core differentiator, ION is overturning the unexceptional rigid, one-time configuration approach adopted by other electronics suppliers.
ION Energy – Revenue Model
The company earns its revenue by following three business models:
The first one is the BMS sale where a bunch of companies buy its battery management system.
The second is the BMS platform license which means companies can use the platform to accelerate their BMS development by two-three years and save million dollars expenses.
Thirdly, the subscription to the startup’s software analytics platform which the companies use for diagnostics and warranty validation.
Akhil Aryan – “Being a startup, we’ve always made it a point to be transparent with our customers. Our communication with our customers has built trust in our company and our platform. At ION, good news can always wait, but if anything goes wrong, we communicate at the earliest and work on correcting our mistakes. At ION, it’s our mission to do whatever we can to make our customers successful. That’s why our first 10 customers are still our strongest customers today and brought many more clients to our company”.
ION Energy – Startup Challenges
It’s so difficult to capture all the challenges one faces in the early days of a startup. It’s almost always at the intersection of Market, Product, Team & Traction. For the team of ION Energy, the challenges were mostly around timing their product with market maturity and ensuring they’re investing both in product and customers that can help them create short term revenues but also those that have the long term potential for market penetration.
“Initially when we began operations, one of the biggest challenges we faced was grooming technical talent in-house. There weren’t many engineers who had expertise in the EV sector and the number of engineers who had knowledge in AI and analytics was low as well”, recalls ION Energy co-founder Alexandre Collet.
When a new market starts shaping up, the talent pool is not mature and so it’s difficult to make significant progress on technology unless there is senior leadership in-house grooming talent. Thus, the company had to train them from the ground up and provide knowledge as well within the sector.
This helped in creating the core team that today also helps train any new engineer that is hired by the firm. Founders hope that in the future, there will be more experts in the EV sector in particular with colleges like Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), College of Engineering – Pune and the Cummins College of Engineering for Women and institutes like IITs beginning courses specifically to EVs.
Explaining the concept to investors at a time when there was low awareness of the need and the technology, inadequate infrastructure, lack of push for electric vehicle adoption and localization of technology by regulatory authorities in the country are some other challenges faced by the company.
ION is India’s largest BMS company with 30%+ market share in the 2/3W space, 10 Crores in revenue and offices in India & France.
The company has customers like Exicom Tele-Systems Ltd., IBS, Tork Motors, Wamtechnik, Electro-Mechanique Industries (RGM), Swincar, TYVA Energie, and Yotta Solar.
ION Energy – Funding and Investors
The initial ION Energy funding came from Akhil (Co-Founder). There are also some seed investors that include Astarc Ventures, Advik hi-Tech and executives from Salesforce, Tesla, Haptik, Nippo Batteries, and Dentsu Aegis. The funds have helped ION Energy in product development and bring the technology closer to mass manufacturing.
The latest fund, as disclosed by ION Energy, is led by eCommerce behemoth, Amazon via the Climate Pledge Fund, worth $2 billion that the firm set aside to support sustainability initiatives of the startups around the world. Along with Amazon, the other companies that joined the round were YourNest Venture Capital, Riso Capitol, Venture Catalysts, and more, which helped ION Energy to raise around $3.6 million in its pre-Series A funding round.
ION Energy – Advisors and Mentors
ION Energy is a part of Shell’s E4 Programme and is mentored by Sushil Jiwarajka, Chairman of OMC Power and founder of Nippo Batteries.
ION Energy was founded in 2016, and within a year of its inception, ION Energy acquired an 8-year-old French Battery Management System (BMS) developer – Freemens SAS, in a first of its kind cross-border acquisition.
ION Energy – Recognition and Achievements
Akhil has been recognized as one of the Young Achievers of 2020 in the coveted ‘30 Under 30’ Forbes Asia (Industry, Manufacturing, and Energy), and Forbes India (Technology) list, and he has also been featured in Entrepreneur India’s ‘35 under 35’ list.
ION Energy – Future Plans
The next 5 years are going to be pivotal, not only for ION Energy but also for our planet and the human species. If the company manages to make the e-mobility transition holistically, it will go down in history as one of the largest positive recourse that humanity has made. The move away from fossil fuels will define the generations to come. ION Energy has a major role to play in this transition and they take this responsibility seriously.
Over the 5 year horizon, the company sees itself managing 10% of all Li-Ion batteries deployed in the country. To make this a reality, they will scale to 100 engineers by 2021 and leverage India’s strength in electronics and software to overcome the lack of lithium resources.
“We aim to Deliver to the Key Customers with 10x Reliability in – Product + Technology. In the next 18 months, we envision quadrupling the impact and delivering 10x by 2021 to 1GWh under management and $20M in revenue“, says Akhil while talking about future plans.
The pandemic has changed the face of all systems that existed. The world is now divided into two parts – Pre and Post Covid. It highlighted many aspects of everyday activities that can be changed for the better. This pandemic is going to result in entire societies being transformed in the years ahead.
The Banking sector is not untouched by the pandemic. Although it was fully functional even when most services closed, it still underwent immense crisis during the pandemic. The banking sector, just like any other industry, has to implement newer methods into its system to stand the test of time.
The Banking sector prides itself on the digital functionality that it has built over the years. But Covid challenge their beliefs and established the fact they need more digitization.
In India, e-wallets and online money managing software gain pace but they are popular only in urban areas. In most rural areas, people still need to go to banks for basic deposits and withdrawals.
The world is moving towards voice-based artificial intelligence, personal smart assistants, built into our homes and mobiles. Therefore, the design of banks to fit in this world requires rethinking banking from the ground up.
Bank much start looking for new product launch opportunities, as well as generate newer offerings toward an advisory and protection focus. Advanced analytics helps them in identifying relevant ideas for growth, but it should be combined with an alteration of digital sales journeys and marketing.
Newer Models for Risk Management
Banks obtain their credit risk modelling from traditional credit bureaus that are both historical and static on the other hand new models are already established to assess small businesses in various contexts, for example, the supply chains that they serve along with the communities that they belong to. So, the risk management model for banks will change over time to be a relevant creditor to small businesses, that are rapidly increasing.
More user-friendly Experience
The banks have an image of being unpleasant and excessively difficult. They have to work towards changing in order to serve society. Private banks are providing more options to customers where agents will be on hand to guide them through transactions on their own devices, and the space will be renewed to more casual seating areas for important conversations. Changing the style and interior of branches also supports social distancing.
AI will be a crucial change as banks move forward from using these not only to monitor transactions but also to assist customers via “conversational banking”. Banks will be combining human and digital channels to help the customers which will be quick and cost-effective. As the love for instant messages grows and demand for 24/7 banking services picks pace, conversational banking involving AI chatbots enables banks to engage in a personalized manner.
Conclusion
We all are a part of the post-Covid world now and both consumers and creators in every sector understand that changes have to be made. Banking will evolve and become more user-friendly and they realize they depend on the society that they serve and not the other way around. Since users have more options to handle money now, banks have to pick up the pace to implement these changes into their systems.
FAQ
How are banks using augmented reality?
Banks are employing AR apps that help customers to find the nearest banks and ATMs.
Is Digital banking the future?
Yes, Covid 19 has also given a rise to Digital banking as it has eliminated the need for consumers to physically visit a bank branch.
What will bank branches look like in 10 years?
According to the experts, Bank branches will have fewer staff and will deploy more powerful ATM machines.
“City of Dreams”, as many people express Mumbai, is a place that helps bring dreams to reality. Angel Investors are one of the means for you, to help achieve your dreams. Thereby, find the list of Angel Investors in Mumbai and get an insight on their specific Market Interests, Contact details and Major Investments. It is also essential for you to clear certain Myths about Angel Investors. We are here to help you out on all of it.
Mumbai isn’t just the well-off city, but the Economic Hub of India, that has various Industrialists, CEOs, Entrepreneurs, Well-known companies, Directors, Producers, Artists, and what not! The place ‘Mumbai‘ has its own culture and architecture that makes it the spot of tourist attraction. Well, a place that is full of life and energetic minds, requires a guide and a financial supporter to enthusiastic people, for building up the initial base of their dreams. Thus, here comes the Role of Angel Investors who act as wizards for breeding minds to help them act upon their dreams.
Before, moving ahead to get insights on Angel Investors, Lets’ understand the Pre-built Myths about Angel Investors and the Reality Strike.
Myths vs Reality of Angel Investors
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Arihant is the MD at Ideaspring Capital (an early-stage VC) and Hive Technologies (platform for launching startups in big data space). He acts as the MD at Patni Financial Advisor and as a Director of Nirvana Venture Advisors. An Entrepreneur, Financial Advisor, and Venture Capitalist, Arihant completed his B.Sc in Chemical Engineering from the reputable University of Pennsylvania and MBA from Babson College, with concentration in Entrepreneurship. He also did a Masters in Statistics from Columbia University.
Anupam Mittal is the Founder & CEO of People Group, which has created ventures like Shaadi.com, Mauj Mobile, and People pictures. He is one of the prominent angel investors in Mumbai with over 20 investments. He completed his studies in Commerce field from the esteemed Boston College. Before People Group, he served as the Product Manager at MicroStrategy in Washington.
Ratan Tata, one of the most influential business tycoons of India, is an investor & philanthropist. He is the recipient of India’s esteemed awards Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan for his immense contribution to the country. He was associated with advisory boards for various companies like Mitsubishi, Temasek, JP Morgan Chase, and Rolls Royce. He serves as the former Chairman of the Tata Group. He completed his Bachelor of Arts from the esteemed St. Xaviers College, Mumbai.
Markets Interested
Digital Media, Education, Healthcare, Ecommerce, Technology
Anirudh, the MD at Artha India Ventures (an early-stage investment firm) is an energetic investor in startups and also a prominent member of the Indian Angel Network. He has a vast understanding and experience of the Indian Startup Ecosystem. He is always on a hunt to find new ideas and accept new challenges. Before Artha Ventures, he acted as the Investor director at FindUrClass and Klip.in. he obtained his Bachelor Degree in Economics & Business Administration from the esteemed Austin college
Zishaan is a successful entrepreneur and a prominent angel investor. He is the Founder and CEO of Toppr, an online education platform. Before getting associated with Toppr, he also co-founded a Phone commerce marketplace Chaupaati Bazaar, which was later acquired by the Future Group. He has also worked with Opera Solutions on various strategies and consulting projects. Being a graduate from IIT Delhi, in 2015, he was awarded the Young Alumni Achiever Award.
Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra group, is a reputable businessman and also an active investor in emerging startups. He founded Project Nanhi Kali, an NGO that provides financial and academic support to underprivileged girls across India. He was included in the Fortune Magazine’s List of ‘World’s 50 Greatest Leaders’. He did his MBA from the reputable, Harvard Business School.
Anand Mahindra’s Investments
Thinkerbell Labs, Local circles, among many others.
Kunal, the Co-founder of FreeCharge (Online mobile recharge platform), is a successful entrepreneur, mentor, and among the top angel investors in Mumbai. He acts as an active advisor at AngelList. He is also the Founder of CRED, Advisor to the board at Times group, and had been an advisor at Sequoia Capital.
Sandeep Tandon, the Co-founder of FreeCharge (Online mobile recharge platform), is an active angel investor in Mumbai. He has invested in and mentored various early-stage startups. Being the Member Board of Directors at CRED, partner at Whiteboard Capital, Non-executive chairman of Aavas Financiers, and the Member of Board of Advisors of Iron Pillar, Sandeep got exposure to various domains. He completed his studies in Engineering from the esteemed University of Southern California.
Markets Interested
Digital Media, Ecommerce, B2B, Online Marketplaces, Matrimonial, Healthcare
Sandeep Tandon’s Investments
Pocket Aces, Bharat Bazaar, ShaadiSaga, Flyrobe, Spinny among many.
Sanjay, the Director of CORE (Centre of Recognition and Excellence), is a prominent angel investor of Mumbai. He was the recipient of the “Angel Investor of the Year” award by LetsVenture in 2017. He is an active member of Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, B2B 1K Ventures & CIO Angel Network, Venture Nursery. He has angel invested in more than 100 startups in diverse sectors. He did his Executive education in Venture Capital from the esteemed The Wharton School.
Ronnie, the Co-founder & Chairman of upGrad and also the Founder of Unilazer Ventures, is an entrepreneur and an experienced angel investor. He is also famous for the creation of UTV, leading Mass media aggregate. He did his Bachelor’s degree from the Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics.
Jitendra, the Founder of Citrus Pay, Jupiter, Lazy pay & MD of PayU India, is a well-experienced angel investor. He has got expertise in the field of Banking & Financial Services industry. Before Citrus, he was associated with ICICi Bank and as the Chief Manager of Global Investment Banking Group.
Vishal, the Founder & CEO of GOQii (platform from health and wellness solution), Vishal Gondal, is an entrepreneur cum angel investor. He has acted as a major contributory in modifying the journey of many startups. Believing in leading and motivating startups to get extraordinary results, Vishal expresses the importance of extra effort & commitment Before, he was associated with the Walt Disney Co. and India Games Ltd.
Haresh, Partner at True North (Private equity firm), is one of the active investors in the Indian startup ecosystem. He is an alumnus of the reputable IIT Bombay & IIM Calcutta. Earlier, he had been associated as a Group CEO at Viacom18 & Network18. He also acted as the General Manager of Times Group & the Amitabh Bachchan Corporation.
Ajeet Khurana, the Former CEO of Zebpay (Mobile wallet for cryptocurrencies), is an entrepreneur and angel investor. He is skilled in building teams, ensuring performance, scaling, digital strategy, planning, and negotiation. He was also associated as an Advisor at Kalaari Capital, a Consultant at ii5 Ventures ltd and as the CEO of IIT Bombay’s business incubator: SINE. He completed his MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.
Markets Interested
Cryptocurrency, E-stores, Fashion, Technology, Digital Media, Healthcare
Ajeet Khurana’s Investments
Medd, WittyFeed, Leaf Wearables, Stitchwood among others
Sanjay, an Operating Partner at GSF India (Venture capital firm & accelerator), is a wise mentor and an active angel investor. His portfolio is majorly composed of tech startups. He also acts as an Independent Director at Easy Home Finance Ltd. Earlier, he served as the President & CMO at Reliance Capital and also as the Marketing Head at Allianz Life Insurance. He excels at negotiations & alliances.
Anuj, the Co-Founder of Venture Catalysts (Start-up Incubator) & Samyakth Capital (Hybrid growth fund), is among the prominent angel investors in Mumbai. He has over 15 years of experience across various fields which includes real estate, financial services, manufacturing, and internet companies. By profession, he is a chartered accountant.
Markets Interested
Digital media, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Ecommerce, Education, Real Estate
Anuj Golecha’s Investments
LenDenClub, Inc42, Koinex, Fynd, Supr Daily, Bharatpe among many.
Japan, the Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Sixth Sense Ventures, is a well-experienced angel investor. He has mentored and invested in various Indian startups and helped them in their journey of growth & development. He is also the Chartered Member of TiE Mumbai. Earlier, he served as the Director at IDFC Investment Advisors Ltd.
Anand, the CEO at Everest Flavours ltd., is an active member of the Indian angel network and Mumbai angels. He has got immense experience in International Trade.
He is also member of National Executive Committee of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), Managing Committee of FIEO (Federation of Indian Export Organisations). He has his footprints set on various social and charitable organisations.
Amit, the Co-Founder & Director of Raay Global and also the Chairman of Nirvana Venture Advisors, is a prominent angel investor in the Indian startup ecosystem. Additionally, he is also a promoter shareholder of Patni Computers and former Director of PCS Technology Ltd., Partner at The Hive-India & Ideaspring Capital. He holds a Bachelor in Commerce and an MBA from Babson College, Boston.
Vaibhav, he is a partner at Karnavat & Co and a prominent angel investor. In addition to that, he is a partner at Itreat Grocers LLP and also acted as CEO of Jewelex International Pvt Ltd. He did his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting & Finance from the H R College of Commerce & Economics and is Chartered Accountant by qualification.
Dr. Apoorv, the Co-founder & President of Venture Catalysts, is one of the prominent angel investors in Mumbai. He also acts as the Board member at TiE Mumbai. Earlier, he served as the Vice President of Indian Angel Network and as the General Manager at Amity Innovation Incubator. He did his Ph.D. in Incubation from Amity University, Graduated in Engineering from HBTI, Kanpur, and Diploma in Mentor Studies of Berkley Institute of Management, University of California, USA.
Rajeev, the Founder of Magnetic Partners, is a well-experienced angel investor in the Indian start-up ecosystem. Earlier, he acted as the CEO & MD of JM Financial Services.
Pravin, He is the General Partner at Seedfund (Early-stage venture capital fund) and the owner of the Infinity Technology Venture Fund. In addition to that, he acts as the Board Member of TiE Mumbai and as an Advisor at Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund.
The Founder & Director of Malpani Ventures, Dr. Aniruddha, is a doctor-turned angel investor. He also acts as the Director at Solidarity Investment Advisors and the Board member of Invention Labs.
Aakrit, the Co-founder & CEO of Haptik (Conversational AI Platform), is an entrepreneur and an active angel investor. He is also the co-founder of Flat.io, a real estate platform and the Director of Winmark Enterprises Earlier, he served as the director at Flurry Inc., Business Technology Analyst at Deloitte Consulting LLP and as a Financial analyst at Chicago Transit Authority.
Markets Interested
Education, Technology, AI, eCommerce, Healthcare
Aakrit Vaish’s Investments
Unacademy, ION Energy, Dataweave, Haikujam, Tookitaki, Talent Litmus among others
Bharat, the CEO & Senior President of Aditya Birla Group, is an active member of the Indian Angel Network, CIO Angel Network, Venture Nursery, and The Indus Entrepreneurs. He is an experienced person in varied fields like Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, business development, and investing. He is the recipient of the “Professional Achiever – Finance Sector” Award from the ICAI.
Bharat Banka’s Investments
OYO, Perpetuiiti Tech, Invenzone, TalView, Vegayan, AdStringo, InstaSafe among others
Devesh Chawla, Founder & CEO of Chatur Ideas, a Startup enabling platform. He is an active investor, TEDx speaker, and mentor to budding entrepreneurs. He is a recipient of various awards which includes “Youth Leadership Award” by Trade Commissioner of Canada, “Mahatma Gandhi Samman Award”, “Entrepreneur of the Year 2018″ and “CEO of the Year 2019”
He did his MBA in Finance and Insurance from the Mumbai Education Trust-Institute of Management and his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology.
Devesh Chawla’s Investments
NUOS, Cloudrino, Hublio, Koonk Technologies, and others.
Vikram, the Founding partner at 8i Ventures, is a prominent angel investor. He also acts as the Board Advisor to Blue Tokai and Signzy, and the co-founder & Board Member of Eight Capital. He did his MBA in Accounting & Finance from the New York University, MBA in Personnel Management & Industrial relations from the XLRI Jamshedpur and Bcom in Finance from the Shri Ram College of Commerce.
Farooq, the Co-founder of Fynd (Online Shopping Platform), is an entrepreneur and an active angel investor. He is a graduate from the IIT Bombay and also was associated with Opera Solutions before founding Fynd. He is an alumnus of the esteemed IIT Bombay.
Abhishek Shah, the Founder & CEO of Wellthy Therapeutics is a prominent angel investor in the Indian startup ecosystem. He did his MBA in Finance, strategy & Leadership from the Esteemed Indian School of Business.
Markets Interested
Consumer Internet, Enterprise Software, E-commerce, IT, Food & Beverage, AI, Healthtech, Big Data
Abhishek’s Investments
Bizly, ZipDial (Acquired by Twitter), Innerchef, Haptik, Greatist, Silverpush, Meddo Health, myUpchar.com, Doxper, among many
Sohil is an Early stage investor and a prominent entrepreneur. With experiences in firms like Bank of America, Fortune Financial Services & Intellecap Impact Investments, he has explored his field of interest with enthusiasm and curiosity. He completed his MS in Finance from The University of Michigan.
Bhavik, the Founder & Chairman of Vamaship (India’s largest e-commerce logistics marketplace), is a focused investor & entrepreneur. He also serves as a Director at BVC ventures. Being a part of various angel networks, he has gained exposure in several tech enabled startups. With regards to academic exposure, he was part of Harvard, London School of Economics, Indian School of Business, Singularity University & Narsee Monjee.
Markets Interested
Mobile Advertising, Social Media, Digital Media, Transportation, Logistics, E-commerce, Travel & Tourism, Software Technology
Siddharth is the Founder & CEO of Noesis.tech. He was also the founding partner at 369 Solutions. With a keen passion for technology, Siddharth constantly attempts to create a platform to monetize knowledge.
Being associated with Protiviti India & StyleCracker as Consultant and Advisor at Umoja & FoxyMoron Media Solutions, he gained immense experience and exposure in his field of domain.
This was our list of Angel Investors in Mumbai. Hope the contact details of these Angel Investors helped you! If you are an investor or know any Angel Investor in Mumbai, connect with us at shubham@startuptalky.com to get featured in the list.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Haptik.
There are more than 3 billion people in the world who use messaging or digital voice interfaces on a daily basis. However, less than 1% use these mediums to communicate with businesses and brands. It is only a matter of time for this to change – enterprises will implement the infrastructure to enable these channels.
Haptik is born out of the belief that conversational AI will have the same paradigm shift, and the company is a global team of 200+ believers waiting to make it happen.
Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text.
Haptik also has an automated conversational testing platform that enables real-time improvements to the AI. Haptik AI is a developer of conversational AI platforms intended to automate critical business processes.
The company’s platform has a live agent tool for a bot to human handover and analytics dashboard to check chat level metrics and insights into what a customer really needs from business, enabling users to chat with experts for any query related to any company, product or service via text messages.
Haptik – Logo and its Meaning
The Haptik logo has hand that is very colorful, and the multiple colors serve a purpose – to symbolize how the app could help users with a wide range of tasks. Taken together, the hand and the colors were meant to say “I’m here to help, and I can help with a lot of things”.
Haptik’s company logo
The bright colors, in addition to being pleasing to the eye, were also meant to symbolize positivity and optimism – reflecting our confidence in the ability of the Haptik app to accomplish the many tasks that it would be asked to perform.
Haptik – Founder and History
Haptik was founded by Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev, both University of Illinois engineering alumni in August 2013.
Founders of Haptik
Vaish recalls, “Swapan and I were working in San Francisco when the mobile app industry was taking off. One of the categories of apps that we saw take off significantly was messaging. We noticed people using messaging apps more than any other type of app, and the addiction to the interface was crazy. We figured there is something here to build on, and potentially a platform to support conversations everywhere beyond simply peer to peer chat. That’s when Haptik was born”.
In March 2014, the company launched its first product, the Haptik app which is a chat-based personal assistant for Android and iOS platforms in India.
Over time this evolved into full-blown conversational commerce app with over 2 million downloads with 15 million app installs. The company launched Life Insurance chat-bot for HDFC Life and a Baap Bot for Father’s Day.
Haptik – Mission
Haptik’s mission statement says, “To build artificial intelligence products that enable the paradigm shift of interaction from clicks to conversations.“
Haptik – Recent News
Reliance Jio said that it has bought a majority stake in Haptik, a startup that develops ‘conversational’ platforms and virtual assistants, in a deal worth $100 million overall. The transaction will see Jio will take an 87 percent stake in the company, with the remaining shares left for Haptik’s founding team and staff. The deal includes 230 crore ($33 million) to buy out existing backers and an investment of 470 crore ($67 million).
Haptik announced that it has acqui-hired Convrg, a Los Angeles-based startup that develops chatbots, to serve customers in North America. According to Aakrit Vaish this move is part of Haptik’s broader strategy to both expand its technology expertise and team and business overseas.
Haptik built the world’s largest WhatsApp chatbot for COVID-19. This was the official helpline for the Government of India which was utilized by over 21 million users across the country. The MyGov Corona Helpdesk was engineered to fight rumors, educate the masses and bring a sense of calm to the pandemic situation. Haptik built the Helpdesk ground-up using official data shared by the Government.
Kotak Life partnered with Haptik to develop an AI-driven conversational assistant called KAYA which provides 24X7 assistance to consumers.
In March 2018, the company partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide Al-enabled conversational solutions to customers in India.
Haptik has entered into a strategic partnership with Y Combinator-backed Leena AI to provide enterprises for all types of bot solutions.
Haptik’s repertoire of chatbot customers in India includes Samsung, Future Group, KFC, Dream11, Sharekhan, Edelweiss, Tokio, Club Mahindra and IIFL among others. Haptik has also built assistants for TOI, Samsung, Ziman and Akancha Against Harassment, an online Cyber Safety Initiative.
Haptik is one of the world’s largest conversational AI platforms. In October 2017, The Times of India app incorporated Haptik’s virtual personal assistant service with Sprite as the exclusive brand partner. Samsung was the second partner who uses Haptik to power its ‘My Assistant’ service that is pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge in India.
Haptik built a scalable Support Bot for Dream11 which helped the online handle 8x their volume without a large support staff during IPL 2018.
Haptik – Business Model
Haptik has always been in the leading position when it came to the chatbot business. They were one of the very first enterprises to come up with the idea and have a huge advantage of the experience factor when compared to its competitors. They have had lots and lots of experimentations done on the concept and have almost perfected the art.
One of their biggest strong points is indeed the upper hand in technology. The in-depth knowledge in Machine Learning and NLP has also aided the company to be one step ahead of the competitors. They were one of the very first firms to reap the benefits of the chatbot industry by foreseeing the growing liking of the people to interface and personal assistance.
They also concentrated on being a B2B(business-to-business) model, which proved more effective for the team. The biggest advantage of Haptik is that they provide customized services to the customers. There is no one model for all kind of a concept that works there. This has also led to the team to stand out from the rest.
Haptik – Revenue and Growth
From a rather unsuccessful launch of its beta phase called Batman to becoming the nation’s biggest AI-based personal assistance platform, Haptik has indeed come a very long way. They have over one million downloads in Play Store and are the highest-rated mobile application in India.
The organization handles over 50 million conversation yearly and has a clean history when it comes to customer churns. This is no ordinary feat and the team has indeed worked very hard to reach where they are today.
More and more people seek the assistance of chatbots to solve their daily problems and help in easier decision making. The company is now looking forward to expanding there scope across the globe and are absolutely confident that they will be able to see the same magnitude of results they could see in India.
Mumbai-based conversational AI assistant Haptik has attained 105% of its revenue target in the first quarter of financial year 2020 despite the pandemic and the reduced cash flow from the travel tech sector which suffered huge losses due to the travel restrictions.
Haptik – Funding and Investors
Haptik has raised a total of $12.2M in funding over 2 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Apr 5, 2016 from a Series B round. Haptik is funded by 3 investors. Times Internet and Vivek Kumar are the most recent investors.
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
Apr 5, 2016
Series B
$11.2M
Times Internet
Sep 16, 2014
Series A
$1M
Kalaari Capital
Haptik – Acquisitions
Haptik has acquired 2 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was Buzzo.ai on Sep 24, 2019.
Acquiree Name
Date
Amount
About Acquiree
Buzzo.ai
Sep 24, 2019
–
Buzzo.ai is a customizable Artificial Intelligence software for retail, e-commerce, travel.
CONVRG
Jul 23, 2019
–
Speakeasy™ by Convrg is AI-powered software that voice-enables your ecommerce website or mobile app, allowing consumers to shop by voice.
Haptik – Awards and Recognitions
Haptik won ‘AI for Good Award’ for the year 2018 at the 4th Annual Canadian Fintech and AI awards. Haptik’s client list includes Fortune 500 names such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, KFC, Tata Group and Mahindra Group, among others.
The company launched in the year 2013 was awarded for its 24×7 bot which benefits its users in fields of cyber safety and harassment. Haptik developed a bot named Akancha Against Harassment or AHH bot, authorized by Akancha Srivastava, a prominent cyber safety pundit and founder of the Akancha Against Harassment (AAH) vision. The bot enhances and educates people about cyber safety in a captivating and conversational procedure. The technology gives a comprehensive information on the absolute process and more users pursuing help and safety against cyber harassment.
Haptik – Competitors
The top competitors in Haptik’s competitive set are Floatbot, Vernacular, Yellow Messenger, SendBird, Niki, and Askarvi.
Haptik – Challenges Faced
Vaish says “Being at the forefront of an industry which is still evolving means that there is no predefined playbook which can be followed to assure results. At Haptik, on an everyday basis, we try out various different experiments some of which succeed while some of them don’t”.
The company faces challenges on all aspects of engineering starting from scaling, research in machine learning, product and design. They perform research in-house and work closely with academia and other institutes to be able to find the best solutions to advance the chatbot and machine learning space.
Having said that, it cannot be denied that chatbot space is growing by leaps and bounds, with traditional slow moving businesses automating their procedures and using chatbot to become more efficient. The founders of Haptik believe that with the growth of AI technology, bots will be able to understand regular human speech in both text and voice.
“Vernacular language support is another interesting field that is currently open to innovation. We can also expect to see chatbots on various other platforms apart from websites and messengers. Chatbots will become more prevalent and be a part of everyday life for everyone who owns a smartphone!”, Vaish added.
Haptik’s team is looking forward to expand further into newer and bigger markets. Haptik has a few clients in the US with IoT, chatbot, and voice assistance market growing extensively in India. A Hansa Cequity Customer Experience Trends Report suggests that the chatbot market will touch $2.3 billion by the end of 2020 from its current $700 million.
“We invested in Haptik back in 2016 based on the early signs of messaging as a paradigm for user interactions. Over the last year, we have seen tremendous adoption in enterprises adopting it as a platform to communicate with their users, with successful results. We are really bullish on what’s to come from team Haptik in the next few months, and are prepared to back them all the way to making this a large global technology company from India.” said Aakrit, founder of Haptik.
Haptik – FAQs
What does Haptik do?
Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. Haptik develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text.
Which company owns Haptik?
The Reliance Industries owns Haptik.
Who founded Haptik?
Haptik was founded by Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev, in August 2013.
This article is part of Behind the Scene series by StartupTalky where we bring you the insights on how a company operates at ground level. Source ~ from the horse’s mouth that is as told by the founders, core management.
Ninjacart is Bengaluru based India’s largest B2B fresh produce supply chain company. It is a pioneer in solving one of the toughest supply chain problems of the world by leveraging innovative technology. Their high-quality and hygienically handled fresh produce ensures healthy food to consumers, with a promise of delivery within 12 hours!
Founded by Ashutosh Vikram, Kartheeswaran KK, Sharath Loaganathan, Sachin Jose, Thirukumaran Nagarajan and Vasudevan Chinnathambi in 2015, Ninjacart has successfully built a tech-enabled supply chain for fresh farm produce, delivering over 1,400 tons of fruits and vegetables daily.Ninjacart has become India’s one of the largest Fresh Produce Supply Chain platform.
StartupTalky interviewed Thirukumaran Nagarajan (Co-founder & CEO of Ninjacart) to get insights on how he is Operating India’s One of the Top Supply Chain Startups Ninjacart. In this post, you’ll get a complete insight on Ninjacart’s Supply chain model, how it functions, Ninjacart’s business model, growth hacks & more.
And here’s what Mr. Thirukumaran Nagarajan has got to say –
How did Ninjacart’s business model and revenue model look like in its very initial days and how it changed gradually?
Ninjacart commenced business in 2015 as a B2C model. Our main aim was to deliver fresh produce to the end consumer within 60 minutes while providing online inventory to retail outlets. We launched our operations in Bengaluru. During those initial 6 months of operations, we realized that the production side of the supply chain is fragmented and retail outlets struggle to source fresh produce on time. It helped us to understand the inefficiencies in the supply chain. These systems relied heavily on expensive and erratic last-mile delivery fulfillment, increasing pressure on the retailers and us as a delivery provider.
This prompted us to pivot our business model from B2C to B2B and we started sourcing fresh produce from farmers directly, simultaneously supplying to retail outlets and small businesses. Addressing challenges like persuading retailers and grocery store owners to take their business online and introducing technology to farmers as a more trustworthy alternative to harvest and sell their produce, Ninjacart’s B2B model began to thrive and we knew we had created something impactful.
ninjacart Logo
There were plenty of hurdles we had to overcome. Evaluating the entire network and identifying the gaps is one matter, but actually being able to implement our solution is quite another.
At the offset, the two major obstacles we set out to tackle were – convincing retailers and grocery store owners to take their business online and persuading farmers to trust us, a tech startup, over the traditional middleman they had known for years.
Then it was devising a mechanism to standardize the pricing of fresh produce. More often than not, farmers would sell their produce for a loss, given the perishable nature of their goods. Therefore, we needed a solution to provide high value for farmers while ensuring the best possible output for the end party.
Limited connectivity, inadequate storage infrastructure, and mismatched supply-demand led to post harvest losses which needed to be controlled with the provision of proper tools and equipment for harvesting. Simultaneously, we also had to train/educate the farmers.
Easing the challenges faced by retailers, from exhausting procurement processes to poor quality management and competitive pricing.
Introducing more sophisticated management and new technologies to improve efficiency in the supply chain, making it low cost, effective, and super fast.
What have been major growth hacks in the early days of Ninjacart?
At Ninjacart, technology has played a major role in making the food supply chain more efficient and independent to handle advanced logistics. Since we started functioning as a B2B model, there is plenty of learning and transformation involved.
As an agritech startup, it was difficult to gain trust in the farmers’ community as they prefer to work with a familiar face rather than a tech company. To understand the framework at the grassroots level, the core team of Ninjacart made overnight trips in mandis. It took us almost three months to determine the price of tomatoes at which farmers sell to the middleman. The timespan of fresh produce being sold in the market is very limited. Within a few hours, the fresh produce is segregated, sorted, and sold. The farmer has to harvest and bring the item to mandi and then figure the price and demand, leading to huge losses as they are unaware of the market conditions.
Ninjacart has solved this issue with the innovation of the Farmer Harvest Calendar, which gives farmers a week’s notice on what is expected of them.
In the traditional supply chain wastage goes up to 25% which Ninjacart succeeds in shrinking up to 4% by leveraging deep machine learning. Furthermore, with the adoption of traceability infrastructure, we ensure food safety until last-mile delivery.
Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-founder and CEO of Ninjacart
The access of farmers to warehouse facilities in India is limited. In the absence of adequate cold storage and efficient warehousing facilities, fresh produce gets wasted even before it arrives in the market or to the end consumer. Therefore, the implementation of tech-incentive processes helped Ninjacart to develop more controlled distribution chains. Over the years Ninjacart has expanded its operations, we are currently operating in 11 major cities across India and promise a delivery within 12 hours. The positive response and overall impact has strengthened our vision to change the way India consumes food.
How do you manage such a large supply chain model?
At Ninjacart, we strive to tackle some of the most difficult structural issues while keeping pace and performance at the forefront of everything we do. Being a supply chain company we have a large workforce at the ground level, making labor a significant business cost.
It starts with farmers bringing fresh produce to the Collection Centre, where it is weighed, batched, and dispatched to our Fulfilment Centers (FC) and Distribution Centers (DC) located throughout the city. Our algorithms then establish an optimal route plan for drivers to reach their destinations with clearly defined points, set a dispatch schedule, and fix arrival slots.
To plan each route with full capacity at minimal cost, we also consider the distance between the Collection Centers (CC) as well as the distance between the Fulfilment Centers (FC) and Distribution Centers (DC). With sophisticated software to understand the geography of the city, the maximum capacity of the vehicles used, cost required. All of this adds up to enough information to run and build a distribution route for the day.
It can be summarized as follows:
The first step is to acquire and understand the ‘Farmer Harvest Calendar’, which would give the team an overview of fruits and vegetables available in each season. This makes Ninjacart aware of the demand and supply, and gives farmers a week’s notice.
The notice period allows farmers to understand the market expectations. Our technology helps us to gain a complete understanding of past buying data, such as – order history and its frequency to figure out a pattern. It helps us to know which items to procure.
Once the produce is procured as per the demand analysis, it is then put into crates at the collection centers
After the produce is weighed and tagged, a message goes out to the farmer through an app which details the supplied quantity and the price so that the amount is credited to the farmers’ bank account the subsequent day
Ninjacart then moves the crates to the fulfilment centers. With the use of special trolleys these crates are loaded and unloaded, ensuring a quicker turnaround time as compared to the traditional lift-and-place logistic systems. The entire process is monitored through an app that the company has built with a sophisticated algorithm
As next steps, these crates are loaded onto vehicles at the distribution centers for delivery, which starts at 2.00 am daily. There are no names on the crates as everything is enabled through the app. Every crate has a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag so that the company knows exactly which vegetables and fruits have been delivered
More importantly, the empty crates don’t necessarily return to the same collection center and Ninjacart’s technology ensures that the chain remains efficient. This has enabled tighter control so that operations are profitable
Ninjacart also maps the simplest routes for drivers to reach their destinations with clearly identified points
How implementing AI and machines has helped the company to grow?
Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Analytics drive decision-making at Ninjacart, and help perform complex human tasks accurately.
The use of generative models and programming helps Ninjacart to accomplish a recommendation engine. The prediction model is used to analyze hundreds and thousands of market factors.
For instance, we analyze past buying data of consumers and the frequency of orders to determine the kind of produce that needs to be procured. It enables us to track produce and thus, provide complete transparency within the food value chain. This way, we inform farmers about what is expected of them for that particular month by issuing a ‘Harvest the farm’ calendar offering weather forecast.
Diagnostic analytics techniques combine growth plans with historic demand data and market conditions to organize the weekly sales and procurement forecast at SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) level. Another analytics tool is predictive analytics, which tells us what is likely to happen. It identifies potential threats in the supply chain spotting optimal patterns while neutralizing errors.
The Ninjacart Supply Chain relies on vehicle route planning to transport tons of fresh produce from farms to retailers in less than 12 hours. The algorithm saves the details of retail customer orders made the day before. It determines the best delivery route based on factors such as customer position, tonnage, crate count, delivery time window, and so on. Similarly, the algorithm uses vehicle information such as vehicle type, start place, maximum crate size, maximum number of points, available time window, and average vehicle speed to allocate the delivery route for the next day’s door-to-door deliveries to stores. After considering both the factors, the algorithm perfectly optimizes the vehicle route towards the customer locations. The route is decided to use the vehicles more efficiently in terms of vehicle usage, occupancy, and positioning the orders to be delivered.
Our algorithms automate the planning and optimization of logistics by mapping 1000+ routes for vehicles crisscrossing 15 states for delivering to customers daily across 7 cities.
We have adopted special trolleys to load and unload the crates, ensuring a quick turnaround compared to the normal lift-and-place logistic systems. The entire process is monitored through an app that helps us place crates in a particular order so that the team can deliver faster. At Ninjacart, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) plays a crucial role in every step of our supply chain, including internal control. Future-ready ERP increases efficiency, lowers operational costs, and acts as one source for information that permits agility and rapid decision transformation.
What major initiatives were taken during Corona to keep the whole operation running and support farmers?
The operations at Ninjacart were at a standstill during the initial days of the lockdown as the government regulations were unclear on which part of the supply chain could keep running. Despite that, we worked around-the-clock to fill the gap between supply and demand by deploying several initiatives. Our problem-solving approach helped the entire supply chain network one way or the other. These initiatives helped farmers to sell their produce directly to the end consumers. At the same time, it benefited consumers as they were able to buy fresh produce at subsidized rates.
There was uncertainty and fear amongst the consumers as supermarkets were closed at the time. After analyzing the situation, we concluded that we have the infrastructure to serve society by bringing food to their doorstep. The execution part was difficult as we had to expand our operations to directly reach the apartments and societies across cities. We created and disseminated a Google Form on social media for people in residential complexes to order fresh produce in bulk. It was a huge success, and we helped thousands of people in 7 cities – Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, and Pune during the lockdown.
Additionally, to ensure that essential commodities reached everyone in need, we started a special program to sell at subsidized rates to old age homes, orphanages, community kitchens and slums. Many NGOs worked with us to feed numerous people, creating a huge impact during a period of crisis.
At Ninjacart, we were flooded with calls from farmers seeking our help in finding end consumers as they were left stranded with their harvested produce. It was time to step up and help our farmers as a way of showing gratitude and support.
We launched ‘Harvest The Farm’ initiative asking consumers to buy fresh produce from Ninjacart at cheaper prices through Swiggy, Zomato, and Dunzo. With the existing supply chain in place, we identified the farmer with a ready harvest, purchased their produce, and helped them recover their cost.
The lockdown gave us an opportunity to work towards our vision of establishing a traceability infrastructure that will help trace fresh produce to its origin from any given stage of the supply chain.
On the occasion of World Food Safety Day on 7th June, we launched FoodPrint. FoodPrint allows us to know everything about the food we eat. Starting from – identifying the farmer, the date and time of harvest, the truck that carried the produce, the warehouse that processed it, the helper who handled the product at the warehouse, the retailer who bought the product, and finally how it was delivered to your doorstep, this endeavor focuses on driving home transparency.
What are different tools the company uses for smooth flow of the work and the organisation?
We have removed intermediaries and replaced them with Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. We have taken a constraint-oriented modeling approach. Constraints are based on distance, vehicle, cost, capacity and time. After defining these constraints, we use a metaheuristic optimization technique (Guided Local Search), to maximize objective function and reduce supply cost. Every process and action is governed by technology at Ninjacart.
The tools developed and implemented by the core of Ninjacart can be concluded as follows:
Facial Recognition: The software quickly captures the entire face, which is then fragmented into small pieces and converted into data streams. To mark attendance, 90% accuracy is required each time. This data can then be used to track worker productivity of employees from start to finish and at various points in the supply chain, as well as to solve many of the common problems that arise to ensure an order is delivered on time and without hiccups.
Futureready ERP: Mobile-ready ERP ensures removes all paper use of in the supply chain
Demand Forecasting: Leveraged deep machine learning to perfect forecasting to 97% and reduce the overall wastage to 4% [Traditional supply chains have wastage up to 25%].
Farmer apps: Ninjacart also have specific apps for the farmers wherein they help them not only in demand forecasting but also with harvest planning and determining the price indent
Connected Logistics: Speed and price can make or break any supply chain. Ninjacart’s indigenous route optimization and utilization keeps the load factor at 92% and puts fresher vegetables on the plate (they move the produce from farm to store within 12 hours) at a cost almost 1/3rd of the traditional supply chain
Vehicle Route Planning is vital in driving the Ninjacart Supply Chain
Being the top player in the niche, do you plan to acquire small startups to expand?
We aim to learn and grow together as everyone is trying to solve the fragmented food supply chain in India. In recent years, we have witnessed new players entering the market only to help the farmers in their pre- and post-harvesting journey. At Ninjacart, we hope to bring as much innovation and solution as we can so that the end consumers and farmers have a seamless and safe supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. The launch of FoodPrint has enabled us to expand our vision of making farmers aware of residue-free farming methods.
We have partnered with Kilofarms, an agritech startup company. Together we have produced the first batch of residue free tomatoes and we intend to add 18 more residue-free fruits and vegetables by the end of this year. Leveraging each other’s tech capabilities, we have developed tech-enabled methods such as drip irrigation to assist farmers in achieving the finest grade of fresh produce through residue-free methods. It not only enables the production of food through optimal farm inputs and low Maximum Residue Limit (MRL), it is also scalable, practical and more affordable than pure organic food.
Artificial intelligence has been drawing a lot of attention as companies and tech-savvy vendors continuously seek how machine learning could improve demand plans and supply chain operations. In particular demand forecasting, the process of planning forecasts that will drive operational supply chain decisions and customer demand plans is being trusted as the next potential field for innovation and a drastic shift.
Giant Tech-savvy companies like Amazon and Microsoft have announced AI tools for refining demand forecasting, and several consulting companies are promoting their AI skills to bring them in demand planning processes. A recent survey identified that AI is the technology that will have the largest impact on demand planning in the near future.
It’s not difficult to notice the compatibility between AI and demand planning. Demand planning involves a huge number of data and data analytics, and it is a repeated cycle after cycle. It is easy to imagine that a self-learning AI application could do at least as good a job as a human planner at forecasting demand.
However, closer examination shows that there are some dire challenges faced by AI to successfully penetrate the demand planning market. These challenges are not much technical as compared to management. Even if AI is not a significant contributor to demand planning, addressing these challenges can improve a company’s demand forecasting performance.
In the world of data and Artificial Intelligence, most companies have been operating with a mixture of technologies into which they invested millions of dollars that they simply can’t turn off. They are also forced to compete in their industries with the digital systems that are building business models completely embracing the power of data and algorithms.
Organization adopt powerful insights for better demand predictions with data and technology. There is a practical adoption of digital transformation through platforms, forecast and predictive models, applications models, fed by a foundational data layer, powered by AI and enabled with real-world scenario testing.
The targeted customers who plan to buy a product expect receiving it immediately and should be readily available to use. Demand planning allows companies to predict which types of products have to be purchased in the next slot from a specific store location. This improves customer satisfaction and commitment from the organizations’ end.
Logistics and Order Fulfillment
Demand forecasting solutions optimize the supply chain procedure and logistics. The product will be more likely to be in the inventory, and unsold goods won’t occupy prime retail space at the time of order.
Pattern Identification
AI is applied to a company’s historical demand signal in an unbiased way. The technology self-learns from complex demand patterns like multiple seasonality signals, non-linear trends, lags, level shifts, etc. and finds common groups to prescribe the suitable model.
Internal and External Causals
Identity complex patterns from the data, the next step is to bring in the effects of internal and external causal factors to enhance the demand signal and quantify key demand drivers. Internal variables include the product analysis, price, promotions, product lifecycles and point-of-sale data.
External data is operated, such as macroeconomic indicators like demographic trends, Consumer Price Index, regional weather data, market share data, consumer sentiment, and much more.
Evaluating different Scenarios
The ability to analyze what-if scenarios for more accurate predictions is the next-generation demand modelling. This is an important point where organizations can win cause and effect by testing demand scenarios and sensitivities at varying levels. Factoring these scenarios into demand models in a deeper sense prepares decision-makers for changing conditions.
Short-Term Forecasting
AI plays a strong role in solving patterns and delivering insights for short term forecasts, predicting actual orders using data like page-views and current inventory positions from vendor portals, companies can set up recommendations on inventory positioning.
Supplier Relationship Management
By having the prediction of customer demand in numbers, it’s possible to calculate how many products to order, making it easy for the organization to decide whether they need new supply chains or to reduce the suppliers.
Marketing Campaigns
Forecasting is often used to market campaigns, adjust ads, and can influence the number of sales. Machine learning forecasting models can take marketing data into account to have a perfected market forecasting.
Technologies that impact Demand Planning
Consumer Demand Forecasting
Extract maximum predictability from the available data
Consumption-based forecasting predicts changing market conditions, utilizing internal and external data sources to fulfil orders
AI functions in a variety of products and services companies with a variety of demand patterns including e-commerce, beverage, beauty, consumer electronics products and many more products
The UI leverages AI to highlight which products need human intervention
AI models consume limitless data sources empowering precision and market responsiveness
Anticipate and respond to shifting market trends
AI focuses on critical areas and anomalies through a unified forecast and Machine Learning driven workflow
Businesses in which Demand Planning is used
Application of Demand Forecast
The forecasting method to select is a function of multiple qualities about a particular item. Each and every item going under demand forecast has a unique history and an optimal method. The application of Demand forecast is Vanguard Predictive Planning uses AI to run a Best-Fit analysis on forecast records at the beginning of each forecast cycle.
The AI engine automatically uses the most appropriate forecasting method for users record. It analyzes the most recent demand data available and ensures the most accurate forecast for every item as it progresses through its lifecycle.
Conclusion
The basic functions of Artificial Intelligence are not new to forecasting and demand planning. Forecasters have used algorithms including artificial neural networks, association rules, and decision trees all of which are common methods in AI.
AI has proved to be one of the notable achievements in technical inventions, making it easier for organizations to predict what the consumers desire.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is wide-ranging branch of computer science concerned with building smart machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.
What are the 3 types of AI?
There are 3 types of artificial intelligence (AI): narrow or weak AI, general or strong AI, and artificial superintelligence.
What is the purpose of artificial intelligence?
The objective of AI is to enable computers to perform such intellectual tasks as decision making, problem solving, perception, understanding human communication.
What are examples of artificial intelligence?
Google Maps and Ride-Hailing Applications
Face Detection and Recognition
Text Editors or Autocorrect
Search and Recommendation Algorithms
What is machine learning?
Machine learning is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. It is a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human intervention.
What is AI forecasting?
Emerging information technologies and artificial intelligence techniques are being used to improve the accuracy of forecasts and make a positive contribution to enhancing the bottom line called AI forecasting.
Varad Kitey
